Velomobiles are rarely stolen as they are conspicuous and difficult to sell. However, it is a good idea tolock your Mango if you have to leave it. We recommend locking the Mango through the rear wheel andsecuring to a bicycle rack or other street furniture which is not easily moved. It is not possible toremove the rear wheel without tools. You can also lock through the front wheels and suspension andsteering components.

John Lewis wrote:Velomobiles are rarely stolen as they are conspicuous and difficult to sell.

Obviously not intended for Australia, where things are stolen/damaged because they are different, or because people are bored and it's fun to steal/destroy things.

Of course you can lock it through the back wheel! I thought someone would just remove the wheel and flee with the velo but remembered QR is not a requirement for puncture repair as the wheels are only mounted on one side.

There were some killer hills but I managed to winch my way up them! Today's top speed was 95km/h and that should be on the video. Will start editing it tonight.

Drivers were very, very well behaved and were all overtaking me as if I were a car - safe passing all round including a truck. Very impressed. I did my best to stay out of people's way but in many places there was just no shoulder, or worse.... rumble strips. Jeez they're lethal!

Speedster wrote:How do you secure the Mango if you go down to the shops? Is there a way to thread a lock somewhere? I'd be worried that it would be a target for undesirables...

Yes, I have a thick, plastic coated cable which I wrap around a pole, etc. and then lock the other end around the frame of the Mango (behind the seat) with a massive padlock. I rarely leave my Mango unattended in public places though as people like to 'look with their fingers...' Why, I have no idea...

For just popping into a store, etc I just leave it unlocked with the park brake on and keep it in view. I've not had a problem. Most people might struggle to work out how to 1) 'reveal' the steering column and 2) unlock the parking brake.

If anyone did steal it I'm sure they'd trash it and not use it or try and sell it. They'd probably drag in behind their car or something...

Whilst it's not exactly a velomobile my GRT 20"/26" trike was stolen in about 1995 or so. It came back to me 5 years later (on exactly the date of my 50th birthday, worse for wear, having been sold on, stolen AGAIN and then trashed) but in 2011 I'm still riding it.

Joe

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracyBertrand RussellMany people feel their lifestyle has a high price, but they're quite cool with that .. as long as somebody ELSE pays the price.

Hey Joe,I recall reading your post about that some long time back and thinking how lucky you were. As I recall it was seen and recognised by someone other than yourself.

My worry with the velo would be the sticky fingers. The shell is pretty thin and the glass could be easily damaged.I read on BROL of one owner returning to find some galah sitting on the front of the machine. Another where a mother was putting her kids in to let them sit in it as if it were a toy. Unbelievable stories. Some owners even have "Don't Touch" stickers but they are routinely ignored. Can't imagine Aus will be any different.

John Lewis wrote:Hey Joe,I recall reading your post about that some long time back and thinking how lucky you were. As I recall it was seen and recognised by someone other than yourself.

My worry with the velo would be the sticky fingers. The shell is pretty thin and the glass could be easily damaged.I read on BROL of one owner returning to find some galah sitting on the front of the machine. Another where a mother was putting her kids in to let them sit in it as if it were a toy. Unbelievable stories. Some owners even have "Don't Touch" stickers but they are routinely ignored. Can't imagine Aus will be any different.

John

The worst offenders are unruly children (ie. bad parents). I've found that asking the parents to remove their child politely usually works. If not, I then ask them if they mind if I touch their children without permission... that usually gets rid of them!

Most of the time simply "you're welcome to look but do not touch" works for most people. The fact that you even have to say this sort of thing these days is very disappointing. I was raised to always look with my eyes, not my hands. John, I know the guy you're referring to with the 'don't touch' stickers. We communicate regularly and swap stories. He has a yellow Quest and lives on Martha's Vineyard, USA.

Looks like a great ride Paul. I was interested to see the "deployment" of the Flevo roof. How much difference did it make? Seems not much room for a helmet under there. Incidentally, What helmet was that?

Is the rumble strip as deadly as it seems? I know there were a couple of Quests rolled on ROAM but their strips seemed much wider than ours and possibly made as grooves in the road from what I could see in the videos. On the trike they rattle the teeth and its good practice to cross quickly but I've not had a sense of the back wheel bouncing away. Probably depends on the speed.

I wonder if some of that instability in the image may have been due to the camera not being mounted tightly enough and able to move about a bit. I have seen that with some video on the bike. Making the mount really solid seemed to cure it.

As always a great video. Just makes me wish my Mango would hurry up and get here.

John Lewis wrote:Looks like a great ride Paul. I was interested to see the "deployment" of the Flevo roof. How much difference did it make? Seems not much room for a helmet under there. Incidentally, What helmet was that?

Just having the shade and no direct sun on my head & neck made an enormous difference.

There is enough room for a helmet under there... just. But of course you can adjust your height in the seat easily enough if required. The helmet is a French E-koi Urbain helmet. I bought it online from their site but as it hasn't undergone testing to the Australian Standard (ie. industry protection more than anything else) it is technically 'illegal' to wear here (unless you're in an international competition, then it is legal!).

John Lewis wrote:Is the rumble strip as deadly as it seems? I know there were a couple of Quests rolled on ROAM but their strips seemed much wider than ours and possibly made as grooves in the road from what I could see in the videos. On the trike they rattle the teeth and its good practice to cross quickly but I've not had a sense of the back wheel bouncing away. Probably depends on the speed.

At slow speeds they were not too bad but if I spent too much time on them the traction was noticeably reduced and that was in the dry. A front wheel isn't much of a problem but to lose traction on the rear, at speed, would be very bad indeed. The faster I travelled over them, the worse the effect. They are certainly tiny compared to the monsters that they encountered in the USA on the ROAM tour... they looked dreadful.

John Lewis wrote:I wonder if some of that instability in the image may have been due to the camera not being mounted tightly enough and able to move about a bit. I have seen that with some video on the bike. Making the mount really solid seemed to cure it.

No, it was purely due to the vibration from the road and the fact that the cameras 'shutter' is a progressively scanning CMOS sensor. The camera was mounted very tightly to the body of the Mango which was also subjected to the vibrations. My body was fine and I didn't notice the vibrations as the seat and padding soaked it up. I would imagine my shock absorbers got quite a workout that day!

John Lewis wrote:As always a great video. Just makes me wish my Mango would hurry up and get here.

Poiter wrote:How do you do the inset rear view on the video Paul?It also seems to be a reversed image or is that so it appears like rear view mirror? (It messes with my head).

Pete

Hi Pete,

The 'rearview' image is footage taken from a rear facing GoPro which I flipped and then reduced. I then overlaid this frame on the 'forward view' footage to get the desired effect. I use Final Cut Pro X to do my editing but this can be done with most other editors, including iMovie using the 'Picture in Picture' mode the Andrew referred to. I flipped the rear image purely so that it appeared like a rear view mirror - I thought this would be more intuitive. Here is what it looks like in Final Cut Pro X:

The captioning that John was wondering about is indeed built into YouTube. I prefer adding the commentary this way so that it is not a permanent part of the video - and some people like to turn the comments off. They also can be changed/edited at any stage which is much better when it comes to making corrections!

nitramluap wrote:The captioning that John was wondering about is indeed built into YouTube. I prefer adding the commentary this way so that it is not a permanent part of the video - and some people like to turn the comments off. They also can be changed/edited at any stage which is much better when it comes to making corrections!

Where do you find that? I had a bit of a look and couldn't see anything.

And here was you thinking the forum was just about learning about bicycles.

Joe

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracyBertrand RussellMany people feel their lifestyle has a high price, but they're quite cool with that .. as long as somebody ELSE pays the price.

As Joe Says. We learn something all the time and not just bike.Thanks Paul and Andrew for you comments and "lesson".I have a friend with Final Cut Pro so will have to go have a look.As a Linux user I suspect there is no one program that will do this but I must go have a look.I have a crummy Oregon Scientific cam that I use sometimes and just ordered one of those Jumbo 808 #11 cameras from ebay to try so front and rear will be possible. The 808 seems to do some fairly decent video compared with the Oregon and a heap cheaper to boot.

I bought Final Cut Pro as I've used it to do more complicated editing etc for a medical project some time ago so I've kept using it. iMovie would be easily capable of doing everything that you see in my videos... and it's free with every Mac.

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